


Contractual Agreements

by Heronfem



Series: Bad Company [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M, Prostitution, humans are confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronfem/pseuds/Heronfem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re in South Carolina when it happens.</p><p>Dean knows that he should have seen this coming, should have known that at some point someone would offer, but he didn’t think it would be so tempting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contractual Agreements

They’re in South Carolina when it happens.

Dean knows that he should have seen this coming, should have _known_ that at some point someone would offer, but he didn’t think it would be so tempting.

The hunt has dragged on for what feels like months, and he’s starting to grow tired of the little hotel room that he and Sam are jammed into. It’s tiny, with suspicious stains and what looks like the leftover furniture from someone’s ancient, kitten-obsessed grandmother, and he can’t take much more of it. The shower has mold in it, the toilet makes ominous noises that sound suspiciously like witch cackling, and the microwave may very well be possessed. He’s sick and tired of being in close quarters, they’re starting to run low on funds, and he hasn’t been laid in a good month.

So when this distractingly handsome guy sidles up to him at the bar and purrs into his ear that he’d _love_ to take him home, Dean doesn’t even bother thinking about it. He just turns, names his price, and watches the man’s smile go feral.

His name is Josh, he’s 6.2, weighs in around 180, and it’s all muscle. He’s pretty, he’s strong, and when he takes Dean to bed, Dean isn’t just some whore from the bar who gets shitty drunk sex. Oh no, Josh takes his time and fucking _ravishes_ him. Dean’s pretty near mindless when he manages to surface from the whiteout his brain went through, and isn’t exactly in his right mind when he agrees to spend the night. The bed is comfortable, he’s more sated than he has been in months, and more importantly, he doesn’t have to listen to Sam snore. They’ve had next to no personal time lately, and as Josh worries at his neck, possessively making a bruise that’s _just_ low enough to be hidden by a collar, he realizes how much he wants to just be with someone else for a night.

One night becomes two, and two becomes three, and three becomes a week, in which Dean has some of the best sex he’s ever gotten, learns a few new tricks, and manages to earn a full thousand dollars, which goes into a neat little box in the Impala’s trunk. Sam just thinks he’s found a girl, and given what a good mood he’s in, doesn’t complain. Castiel isn’t there to bitch about his whoring, and it’s not like Dad is a concern, so he doesn’t feel bad about it in the least.

The hunt is going well, he’s feeling good, and Josh is actually a pretty good cook, so all things considered, he’s practically in heaven.

oOo

Josh slides up behind him on the morning of the eighth day and presses in close, biting and licking at the mark he’s left on Dean’s neck. It’s a big, red thing, and it actually hurts when Dean touches it, but it feels good enough that he moans a bit, eyes fluttering close and hand going a little bit limp on the spatula he’s holding for the pancakes. He likes being held like this, having attention lavished on him. Better yet, he gets money to be pleasured. He _loves_ this job.

A little, niggling thought of Castiel’s fury when he’d found out about the whoring slips in, but he shoves it back down. This is not the time to be thinking of a bad-tempered angel, who really has nothing to do with this situation.

“You interested in another go?” he murmurs, letting out a pleased little noise when Josh’s hands slip under his shirt and up to smooth over his skin.

“Interested in keepin’ you for a while,” Josh drawls in his ear. “What’d’ya say?”

Dean freezes, the happy haze of morning beginning to drift away. “What do you mean?” He asks slowly, flipping over one of the pancakes.

“I’d like to keep you,” Josh says, nosing at the sensitive spot behind Dean’s ear that never fails to make his knees weak. “I’ll pay.”

“…You want a kept whore,” Dean says, just for some clarity.

It’s like ice water has been poured down his back. Somehow, he hasn’t ever thought about it, about being kept. No one’s ever wanted him permanently (well, maybe Lisa), and the thought is almost frightening with how much he wants it. He couldn’t give up hunting, of course, and he would never give up Sammy, but the fact remains that he _wants_ it.

“I want a kept you,” Josh purrs, running his hands over Dean’s chest and nibbling at his neck. “You’re just about _perfect_ , y’know? Just perfect for me.”

His heart is thrumming like someone’s hooked up a caffeine drip to it, and his hands are shaking. Perfect? The hell he is- _he’s been to hell_. But the man doesn’t have to know, he doesn’t have to tell him anything, he can just…be paid. Yes. That’s right. He’ll just stay for a while, and take the money, and when the case is done he’ll finish off the night and just run for it. Plain and simple. He can do this.

“Alright. I’ll stay until it’s time for me to leave.”

He flips over the pancakes, and realizes that they’ve burned.

oOo

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sam demands as he collapses, woozy and feeling like someone punched him in the gut.

“Dunno,” he huffs out, the lie easy and his leg straightening out a bit painfully. He’s stiff and sore from some extremely kinky sex last night, and he _hurts_. He’s not nearly as young as he once was, and he’s never been a big fan of riding crops, let alone being tied up so tight he gets dizzy. He’s lucky that it’s a cool day, because there’s rope burn on his wrists, and Sam would give him Looks if he saw it. There’s also the fact that Josh is never, ever gentle on him, too. Josh is a manly man, or whatever, and that means some of the most fast paced and vicious fucking he’d been on the receiving end of in years.

Sam snorts, adjusting the grip he has on his shotgun. The afternoon is hot, and while Dean would happily be crashed out in Josh’s massive, memory foam equipped bed, he’s working a case regarding one of the nastiest ghosts they’ve seen in years. It’s an old school ghost, one that doesn’t need an earthly tether, just a mental one, and trying to figure out how to kill the damn thing is proving difficult.

“You know, if you called Cas down, I’m sure he could sort this mess out.”

“I’m not calling him,” Dean snaps. “The last time I did that, he melted down El Dorado for us, and I don’t like being in his debt.”

After their conversation regarding Dean’s extracurricular activities, so to speak, Castiel had mostly ignored him, apparently believing the issue solved. However, Dean hadn’t ever really promised to stop- he’d just said he’d try. And so he’d kept at it, doing what he could to pawn the gold (which ended up being a lot less than initially anticipated. Friggin economy) in order to keep the Impala running smoothly and them in good food. Sam got new clothes out of the deal, at least, even though most of them were various colors of ridiculous.

Besides, if he called down the angel, he’d know the second he landed that Dean had bro- he has not _broken_ anything, he never promised!

Sam shifts uncomfortably, and says quietly, “Did you two have a fight? Is that what this is about?”

“What? No! God, you bitch, let’s just…move on, okay? We’ll go back, figure out what the hell we’re supposed to try and kill this thing with. Talk to Bobby or something.” He scrambles to his feet, and begins stalking back to the Impala. Enough is enough. He wants to be in bed with Josh, where the memory foam would make everything better.

If he ever gets a chance, he is so getting memory foam.

oOo

“You seem a little stressed out,” Josh purrs as he digs the heel of his hand into Dean’s back. Dean cringes, but takes the pain, because the man has very talented fingers and he knows that he’s going to be massaged within an inch of his life in a good way, and it’ll feel like heaven afterwards. “What’s the matter, pet?”

Dean hates the term pet, but for the amount the man is paying him, he really doesn’t give a damn what he gets called. “It’s nothing. The job I’m working’s just stressin’ me out, and my brother isn’t helping.”

“You guys are drifters, right?” Josh asks, and Dean lets out a squeak that he’s not proud of when an elbow drills down onto a knot. “Wand’rin’ the country?”

“Basically,” Dean manages to get out.

Josh says nothing after that, just keeps torturing him until his body is fifteen kinds of blissed out. Later, when there’s an arm slung around his waist and the moon is cresting white light over the waves outside the window, Dean tangles their fingers together and wonders why he feels so incredibly lonely even when he’s being so well cared for.

oOo

Josh’s house is a beach house. It’s on the smaller side, clean, with white walls and slick soapstone counters that Dean rather likes (easy cleanup is everyone’s friend), and the furniture is all comfortably sturdy and varying colors of earthy greens and browns. It’s pleasant, and the sea air will often slide through the open windows, making the silky, dark brown curtains billow across the floor. The house is almost feminine in color and style, but Josh likes it that way for whatever reason, and Dean can’t complain about how beautiful the place is. The porch off the kitchen and dining area opens onto the beach, and a long dock goes out to where Josh’s little sailboat bobs on the water, its cheerful blue and green sails currently rolled up.

Dean is stretched out on a towel on the beach when there’s a flap, a crunch of sand, and the feel of air being whooshed out as it’s displaced. He closes his eyes in exasperation as a voice like gargled gravel says, “Hello, Dean.”

“Cas,” he says calmly, ignoring the way his hand has clenched the towel. “What’re you doing here?”

There’s a pause, and he hears him shift his weight. Odd. Castiel never gets unnerved by anything. He cracks an eye open, looking up at him.

Castiel is surveying him critically, and Dean groans, dropping his head back down. Of course. He’d gone for a swim in the wonderfully cool water, which meant he was stripped down to borrowed trunks. He was covered in massive bite marks, a few welts from the crop, and probably had rope burn in places. Great. This was going to go over like a house on fire.

“Who did this to you?”

Dean rolled over, squinting up at him. “His name is Josh. I like him, he likes me, we have wildly kinky sex together. Anything else you want to know?”

“Is he paying you?” Castiel’s voice comes out sharp, like an accusation, and Dean has had enough of this. 

“Even if he is, it’s not your business,” he snaps, rolling back over and pointedly turning his head, as if ignoring him.

A foot comes down hard on his back, and Castiel’s growls, “I rebuilt you from the atoms up. I dragged your soul out of hell, I replaced every freckle on your body, I placed the color back in your eyes and the breath in your lungs. _You_ are my business, Dean Winchester, and I will not have you sullying your skin with marks from someone who doesn’t love you.”

Dean’s face burns, and he snarls back, “Then you’d better take your foot off me before I bruise.”

He can feel how Castiel goes still, how he takes in the words. The foot is slowly removed, and Dean looks up at him, still angry, to catch the expression of faint betrayal on his face before he vanishes with a flap of wings.

Groaning, he drops his head back down onto the towel, and Josh’s voice calls from the porch, “Dinner’s ready!”

His life is complicated.

oOo

“Why doesn’t he love me?” is the first thing that Castiel says when he appears in front of Sam.

Sam, who had been enjoying a nice, leisurely nap on the bed, comes to with a start, and promptly shoots him.

Fifteen minutes later, after Sam has finished fussing over him and apologizing endlessly for being so on edge, they sit down at the table on the plump chintz chairs. Sam forces himself to become still and focus on the angel, and Castiel asks again, feeling a bit more vulnerable, “Why doesn’t he love me? Humans…Humans love people who do impressive things for them, right? That’s what love is, isn’t it? Listening to the other person and valuing them? I’ve done everything for him, and still he treats me like…like a mere tool, just another weapon to utilize. I _remade_ him, and all he can see is just another soldier, another fighter, and he won’t _listen_ to me.”

Sam sighs, running his hands through his hair. He decides not to focus on Castiel’s unusual definition of love, figuring that that was how God implanted the idea into their heads. Listen and help each other. That was love, to him, and he isn’t going to try and rewrite angel software right now. “Cas…He’s _Dean_. He’s not exactly your average human being. You pulled him out of Hell, and you wonder why he has a hard time loving people?”

Castiel just seemed to be sulking, and Sam sighs again, trying, “He’s scared, Cas. We’re both perfectly aware that you two are…well, you’re an angel, and he’s a human who just so happened to be pulled out of Hell, where he was tortured for forty years. And how did they torture him?”

“He was shown images of those he loved being…” Castiel’s voice trailed off, and he said quietly, “Oh.”

“Dean doesn’t have a great track record with the people he loves,” Sam said quietly. “And you’re male. Or at least male shaped. You know about AIDS?”

Castiel nods, adding, “The virus was unleashed by demons, a variant on the Croatoan. I fought against those who first released it. It…It has other effects, on angels. It eats their wings. I lost several of my brethren to it.”

Sam’s eyebrows shoot up at that, but he shakes his head to clear it. “Anyway- we grew up in the middle of the AIDS scare, see? All these gay men were dying, and no one knew why. A lot of people said that it was God’s punishment or something, and Pastor Jim, one of Dad’s friends that we stayed with pretty often, he, uh…he didn’t discourage that thought. Dean took it hard, got really scared. He says he never prayed, but he used to sneak into the chapel and, well. I used to hear him begging God not to let him be killed, that it had just been a kiss. He was terrified, but he pushed past it and started whoring. I was too young to understand why people thought that it was God raining down punishment, but I understood that Dean thought that he was damned because of this boy I saw him with a few times. It was the 80’s, free love was done. Love had a cost, and that cost was sometimes a person’s life.”

Castiel sits still and quiet, taking the words in.

Sam licks his lips and links his hands together, looking down at the fingers. “And then there was Dad.” He clears his throat a few times, and says a bit hoarsely, “He _knew_. He found out about Dean’s whoring when I was 17, and hit him, just the once. But Dean didn’t forget it, remembered how horrified Dad was. He did what he had to, for us, but Dad…Dad used to just casually make these little remarks, just little things about how good Dean and some girl looked together. Emphasis on the girl. Sometimes Dean’d just take the Impala and drive to get away from his own thoughts, how frustrated he was. He was used to be used by men, and- and sometimes–“ Sam’s voice shakes a bit. “Sometimes he’d come home bloody from how rough people were with him.”

Cas’s hands clench.

“But in the end, Dean just kept whoring. He’s…he’s never really been in a relationship with a guy. He’s been with a lot, but he’s never… _been_ with one. You see? He doesn’t know what to do.”

The door squeaks as it opens, and the two at the table turn to see Dean glowering at them from the doorway. “I just got off the phone with Bobby,” he says gruffly. “Killin’ time.”

oOo

The ghost has moved on, but for some reason Dean is in bed with Josh still, riding out what feels like the best orgasm of his life. He’s being stroked and coddled, soothing words pressed into his skin as his body resonates with pleasure, and he’s stunned to find that he’s happy.

He doesn’t want to leave, he realizes as he watches Josh flop down beside him, his smile sated and happy. He wants to stay in this nice little house, where there’s good food and a comfortable bed and a warm, good-looking body waiting for him. He wants to chat about pointless things over breakfast with this guy, he wants to be cuddled and held and kissed like he _means_ something. Whore or not, he’s being treated well here, and he likes it.

And he can’t stay.

He has to leave, maybe within the week, because he doesn’t get nice things.

And he can’t bear it.

oOo

He’s packing up his duffle when Josh stirs in his sleep. He freezes, but it’s too late. The man is opening his eyes, and while his expression is first a peaceful smile, it falls.

“Dean?” he says groggily. “Dean, what’re you doing? Are… are you leaving?”

“I’ve gotta be driftin’ along,” Dean says simply, biting his lip when he gets a bit choked up. Josh slides out of bed, brow furrowing as he slides in behind Dean, perfect bare flesh gleaming with moonlight. His hair is tousled and dark, his eyes glowing pale blue for a second, and for one wild second Dean could swear that he looked like Castiel. But no- Castiel would never be so forward as to tug him into a hungry kiss, never whisper desperate pleas for him to stay, never offer to pay any amount to keep him. Castiel would never desperately remind him that he’s agreed to this, that he promised to stay, to be kept.

The dream of this perfect little house by the beach is done.

He’s a whore, a kept man by the contractual agreement of a “Yes” in a bar, and this man, this man that’s been nothing but kind to him, still bought him. He’s still a whore.

It hurts more than he thought it would when he heads to the front door, and Josh grabs him to pull him into a shockingly tender kiss.

oOo

Castiel’s sitting on the steps outside the motel when Dean pulls up.

The door is slammed shut, and Dean sits down beside him, expression somber. They stare out into the darkness for a while. Far away, waves can be heard crashing endlessly onto the shore while the Moon hangs in a pretty white circle above the horizon. Trees rustle. A few crickets chirp. Castiel is like stone beside him, unbreathing, unmoving.

“I told him to keep the money,” he says quietly. “I couldn’t do it.”

Castiel looks over at him, eyes all but glowing in the dark. “Why?”

Dean sighs heavily, rubbing a hand through his hair. “Because he’s perfect, y’know? Not perfect, perfect but…the idea is.” He looks down at the gravel under his boots. “When Zachariah showed me the life I could have had… Josh would have fit in it perfectly. He’s got the perfect house, he has a great job– He’s a chiropractor – he cooks, he keeps a clean house, the sex was _amazing_ , he thought I hung the moon, he was funny and kind and genuinely sweet sometimes… I love the idea of staying there. Settling down. Hell, maybe even having a few kids, ‘cause like Hell will I ever have kids who have to grow up on the road.”

His voice grows bitter as he says, “I’m not going to let him pay for allowing me to have one of the best months of my life. Kept fuck-toy or not, it was good. And I will never get that again.”

Dean stands up abruptly, and tugs open the door to the motel room with its stains and chintz chairs, and all Castiel can do is hurt.

The waves crash against the shore.


End file.
